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Finnish and Portuguese Parents' Perspectives on the Role Of education sciences Article Finnish and Portuguese Parents’ Perspectives on the Role of Teachers in Parent-Teacher Partnerships and Parental Engagement Cristiana Levinthal 1,* , Elina Kuusisto 2 and Kirsi Tirri 1 1 Department of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, 00100 Helsinki, Finland; kirsi.tirri@helsinki.fi 2 Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, 33100 Tampere, Finland; elina.kuusisto@tuni.fi * Correspondence: cristiana.levinthal@helsinki.fi Abstract: The current educational reforms in Finland and Portugal require a holistic engagement of parents with learning, bringing parents and teachers together as partners. This qualitative study, which interviewed Finnish (N = 10) and Portuguese (N = 9) parents, aimed to explore parents’ views on the role of teachers in supporting parent–teacher partnerships and parental engagement with the school. Inductive content analysis was performed to analyze the interviews. From a general stand- point, three patterns were found in the parents’ narratives about the role of teachers in supporting partnership and engagement: communication, professionalism, and invitations to active parental participation. From a cross-cultural standpoint, Finnish parents evidenced partnerships and engage- ment grounded in little face-to-face contact but consistent online communication with the teacher, as well as trust in their professionalism and independent work. The Portuguese parents revealed rather frequent active participation within the school premises, more recurrent face-to-face communication with the teacher, and appreciation for teachers’ timely responses and support. Recommendations Citation: Levinthal, C.; Kuusisto, E.; Tirri, K. Finnish and Portuguese for a holistic approach of engagement and partnerships were brought forward within the context of Parents’ Perspectives on the Role of teacher education, such as the need to maintain simple but regular communication with parents and Teachers in Parent-Teacher the relevance of reconsidering the frequency of parental activities in the school. Partnerships and Parental Engagement. Educ. Sci. 2021, 11, 306. Keywords: parents’ perspectives; teachers’ support; parent–teacher partnerships; parental engage- https://doi.org/10.3390/ ment; Finland; Portugal educsci11060306 Academic Editor: James Albright 1. Introduction Received: 16 April 2021 1.1. Parent–Teacher Partnerships and Parental Engagement Accepted: 16 June 2021 Published: 21 June 2021 The positive influence of parental engagement in education on children’s learning and achievement is universally acknowledged [1,2]. However, parental engagement is depen- Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral dent on effective parent–teacher partnerships and on teachers’ support for engagement [1]. with regard to jurisdictional claims in Traditionally, the parental role has been constructed as more reactive than active [3,4]. published maps and institutional affil- However, current educational aims for a holistic pedagogy [5] call for the urgent activation iations. of parents’ full potential to partner with teachers in order to promote the education of the whole person. The aim of this article is to explore parents’ perspectives on the role of teachers in supporting parent–teacher partnerships and parental engagement in school, in pedagogically holistic school contexts. Parents’ engagement in education is a multidimensional construct encompassing a Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. variety of perspectives and definitions [6,7]. Nevertheless, it has traditionally been studied This article is an open access article based on a school-centered approach, that is, focused on parents’ and families’ assistance distributed under the terms and in satisfying school needs. In contrast to school-centered approaches, a holistic pedagogy conditions of the Creative Commons not only seeks to teach content-related knowledge, such as math, science, or languages, Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// but it also strives to help students develop a set of skills, values, and attitudes that will creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ result in them becoming autonomous, proactive, and competent global citizens [5]. Holistic 4.0/). pedagogical schools are learning-centered, as opposed to school-centered, as they aim Educ. Sci. 2021, 11, 306. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11060306 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/education Educ. Sci. 2021, 11, 306 2 of 16 for the comprehensive development of the student. We propose that a learning-centered approach to parents is required for schools to achieve full success in holistic pedagogy. In this article, we adopt Janet Goodall’s [1] contemporary learning-centered framework of parent–teacher partnerships and parental engagement. From this perspective, different forms of parental engagement are acknowledged as important, providing they maintain the centrality of children’s learning and are supported by a well-grounded parent–teacher partnership [1]. Although parental engagement and parent–teacher partnerships are not synonyms, the latter plays an important and indisso- ciable role in the former. Being partners reflects the shared responsibilities parents and teachers carry out throughout children’s schooling and learning paths [6]. It is only by allowing such shared roles, as opposed to separated or sequential roles, that parents can genuinely be engaged with learning. Partnerships are, therefore, grounded in collaboration towards the children’s learning. According to Goodall, the key features of an effective and genuine partnership are that teachers and parents engage in dialogue around and with the learning of the child; teachers and parents value each other’s knowledge and legitimate the authority of each other’s roles; and teachers and parents participate in supporting learning (for a detailed description of the framework, see Authors) [8]. Research on partnership and engagement has evolved to legitimate a more active and empowered parental role [1,6,7,9]. However, the teacher, regarded as the reference actor within the classroom, has consistently been pointed out in studies as a central enabling figure of parental engagement [1,9]. The teacher’s role in encouraging participation is to promote parents’ engagement by suggest- ing activities or inviting meaningful participation in and outside the school [10,11]. For example, a parent–teacher meeting about a child’s progress, parental homework support, or a parent and child reading a book together in the park are all activities that illustrate learning-centered parental engagement. The difference between these interactions is their context, i.e., whether they are school-, schooling-, or broadly learning-related [1]. Goodall underlines the importance of the latter, as it allows parents to engage with their children’s learning in school-independent settings and to take advantage of the strengths of natural contexts. The teacher plays a preponderant role in supporting engagement in activities that are relevant to the student’s broader learning as well as in cultivating the meaningfulness of such learning in school- and schooling-related engagement [11]. Such support is better conveyed through mutually respectful parent–teacher dialogue. Communication is necessary in parent–teacher partnerships in order to align goals. Re- search on parents’ perspectives shows that an open line of communication between parents and teachers is viewed as an important facilitator of partnership and engagement [12] and a primary way of enhancing parents’ trust in the teacher [13]. Conversely, in the context of parental engagement in homework, a lack of communication has been shown to pose serious risks to partnerships, as parents’ own role in construction and beliefs about such forms of involvement may differ from teachers’ expectations [4]. Accordingly, Baker and colleagues [14,15] underline the importance of teachers and schools not only communicating but also actively listening to parents. Their focus-group research with parents and teachers revealed that parents may feel distant from the teacher if proper time is not allocated to invest in dialogue. Moreover, parents may experience anger or frustration when they perceive that their initiatives to increase home–school contact are not welcomed. A further qualitative study found that parents considered the following three teacher behaviors to be essential during dialogue: taking notes, discussing next steps, and showing attention and concern [16]. Such behaviors cause parents to feel listened to and valued as assets in their children’s schooling and learning [13] and legitimate their role and participation. Research demonstrates that teachers’ invitations for participation may vary according to the structural framework provided by the school, and that such invitations constitute an important element in the construction of parents’ roles and their motivation to be engaged [17]. Teachers’ invitations for engagement can contribute significantly to the strengthening of partnerships if parents feel their participation is worthwhile. By contrast, Educ. Sci. 2021, 11, 306 3 of 16 studies have shown that merely visiting the school to receive a one-way report from a teacher on a child’s behavior or achievement, or sitting down at home to teach homework, might negatively affect engagement and home–school partnerships [7,18]. Such a school- centered model of parental involvement poses several challenges for genuine parental engagement with learning. For parents, teachers’ invitations to
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